them.
“There you are,” she said to Cort. “Do you know that damn bird of yours stole one of my earrings last night? And it was an exact replica of the ones Cher wore to the Oscars in 1988.”
“Of course he did,” Josie Lynn heard Cort mutter and reach for his wallet.
Josie Lynn studied the Cher, then leaned in to whisper to Drake. “He’s one of the five. He was dressed as Believe Cher last night.”
“Are you sure?”
Josie Lynn nodded.
Drake stood up and walked over to the Cher.
“You were at the wedding last night. You crashed it.”
Moonstruck Cher gave Drake a slightly offended look. “Crashed? I don’t think so. We were a gift to the bride.”
As if they realized one of their own was being confronted, the four other Chers appeared from backstage, making a very impressive beeline toward them.
“Great,” Wyatt muttered, “we’re going to end up in a tranny brawl.”
“Well hello, wild ones,” Half-Breed Cher greeted them, hardly looking ready to fight.
Josie Lynn then realized she was talking to her and Drake.
“Wild ones?” Drake said.
If You Could Turn Back Time Cher clucked her tongue. “You two were naughty, naughty, naughty.”
“But so much fun,” Sixties Cher said.
Josie Lynn exchanged looks with Drake. This wasn’t going at all like they thought it was going to go.
“We hung out with you all last night?” Drake asked.
“Obviously,” Cort muttered, handing Moonstruck Cher a wad of cash. “Damn bird.”
“Yes,” Bob Mackie Cher said, “But clearly none of you remember it either.”
“Either?” Wyatt said.
“Brian and I here,” Bob Mackie Cher said pointing to Half-Breed Cher, “ran into a couple of your friends. The ones handcuffed together. And it was clear they didn’t remember partying with us either.”
“So you didn’t drug and rob us?” Josie Lynn said, thoroughly confused.
All five Chers looked appalled.
“Would Cher rob anyone? Please,” said Bob Mackie Cher.
“She is a goddess,” If I Could Turn Back Time Cher stated adamantly. “Not a common criminal.”
Josie Lynn supposed that was reasonable logic.
“Plus, we really are friends of Zelda’s,” Sixties Cher said.
“So who the hell drugged and robbed us?” Drake asked.
“Oh, we can tell you that,” came a voice from behind them.
They all turned to see Johnny, Zelda, and Saxon—and behind them were two people wearing black leather masks with zippers over their mouths and cuffs on their wrists as they were being dragged along by dog collars and leashes. One of the leashes was the one Josie Lynn had used on Waldo, which meant the gator was probably on the loose again.
“Saxon figured out who drugged and robbed us,” Zelda said proudly, and clearly fully recovered.
“Who?”
Saxon peeled back one of the masks on the bound couple, while Johnny pulled off the other.
“Eric,” Josie Lynn said, not totally surprised. But her jaw dropped when she looked to the other culprit. “And Ashley?”
“WHAT THE HELL is going on?” Believe Cher asked. “Isn’t that Madame Renee’s daughter?”
Johnny wanted to laugh. He wanted to sit down in a chair and laugh his fucking head off at the sheer ridiculousness of this night, and his life in general. Here he was, standing in a burlesque club with five men dressed as Cher while Saxon revealed the culprits in the Great Wedding Dress and Drug the Vampires Caper. It felt like he’d fallen into an episode of Scooby Doo and he was the dog going, “Ruh?”
When Saxon had called him for backup after Lizette had taken off, he had shown up at Zelda’s and found her with her new husband in the Dungeon, trussing up a couple of college kids like they were Christmas geese. Or worse. Now he was being told that this blond girl, Ashley, who had looked so sweet passing out crab cakes at the wedding, but was hissing defiantly now, was a transgender vampire’s daughter?
Johnny didn’t need his acute senses to smell bullshit.
“You’re Madame Renee’s daughter?” Josie Lynn gasped, standing close to Drake. “But he’s so . . . old. And so fond of sequins.”
“Doesn’t mean he doesn’t like to boom-boom with a young thing in his room,” Bob Mackie Cher said.
Gross.
“So who drugged the punch?” Drake asked. “Was it these two?”
Neither Ashley nor Eric said a word, but it was clear from their silence that they were guilty as sin. Johnny’s urge to laugh disappeared completely. Not only had Lizette disappeared on him tonight, probably on the first flight back to France, but now he also found out that a kid with daddy issues had drugged a whole roomful of vampires? It was mortifying.
“I saw her do it,” Saxon said. “But since she was the catering assistant, I thought, like, she was supposed to add stuff to the sherbet. But when I thought about it, I realized you probably don’t add pills to punch.”
Johnny looked at Saxon, whose crimped hair was going limp in the humidity, and wanted to slap him upside the head. But he restrained himself. “So why didn’t you black out like the rest of us?” he asked him.
“I didn’t drink the punch. Dude, I don’t do rainbow sherbet. I’m a purist. Orange only. I should have been more specific with Josie Lynn when we ordered it.”
“Poor baby,” Zelda cooed to him. “I’m sorry you didn’t get your special sherbet. We can get some later and I’ll feed it to you.”
Johnny gagged a little in his mouth. Zelda had her foot on Eric’s back to hold him in place after the kid, looking more bored than terrified, had sat down on the floor and was holding his head up with his palm. Johnny couldn’t say he approved of the whole masks-and-leashes approach to the situation, nor was he okay with the image of Zelda feeding Saxon orange goop. He wanted to go home, desperately.
So he decided to take charge of the situation. “Okay, look. Eric and Ashley. You’re fired, obviously. But that’s the least of your problems. We can press charges for drugging us, but we’ll go easy on you and let the whole damn thing drop if you tell us exactly what went down and then promise to never show your face in the Quarter again. Where do you live, by the way?”
“Mid-City,” Eric murmured sullenly.
“So do we have a deal?”
“What do you want to know?” Ashley asked, flipping her hair back and meeting his gaze head-on.
“Is Renee your biological father?” Johnny was just too damn curious about that not to ask.
“Yes. He’s not gay, he just likes to cross-dress.”
Huh. He knew that Renee hadn’t been a vampire for very long, and had wondered why the man had waited so long to cross over. Who wanted to be an old vampire for all eternity? But apparently Renee had been committed to being a dad and had put that before immortality. He had to say he admired the man’s commitment to his daughter, even if she had grown up to be a conniving criminal with poor planning skills.
“So why did you drug us?”
“To rob you and frame the Chers for it.”
Turn Back Time Cher gasped. “What! How dare you?”
Fortunately, Wyatt stepped in and helped him out on this one. “Ashley, why would you do that?”
“Because my father’s club is going to go bankrupt. It’s not fair. I just wanted to get rid of some of his
